Birds Of A Feather
by ChiaraMon
Summary: A re-imagining of Yang's Volume 5 journey from her home in Patch up to her arrival at the Branwen camp, with some new faces and a newfound family tie. For r/RWBY's Writing Prompt Wednesday #171 [Prompt: "Shortly after abandoning Tai, Raven gets pregnant with another child. 17 years later, her two children meet."]


The humming of an engine fizzled out as the vehicle crawled to a stop. In the dirt road, Yang dismounted the Bumblebee and walked over to the modest storefront she stumbled upon. _'Just Rite, huh?'_

The air of the place was cool but dry, like a cellar in need of a dust up, but for a remote pit stop in the middle of a long dirt road, it did nothing but meet Yang's expectations. Shelves were stocked, boxes of surplus lining the floor in some aisles, and the place was decently lit. Over in the corner, a customer wearing black robes was rooting through some of the vanity items on display. Aside from the short, grey hair beneath the black bandana draping over the top of their head, Yang couldn't make out many details about them; one hand obscured their face, scratching their temple in apparent contemplation while the other was holding several different small handheld mirrors.

Behind the counter stood the only other body in the shop, a slightly aged man wearing glasses and a bow tie. He looked at Yang as soon as the door bell yanked him out of the magazine he was eyeing over and shot her a wave. She returned the greeting and scanned for anything that could take the taste of dirt and hastily crammed-down breakfast out of her mouth. Moments later she returned with a bottle of water that was practically begging her hand to pop the seal off as soon as the transaction was complete.

The clerk rang up her order, taking the time for some small talk, "So, what brings you 'round these parts?" She ripped the bottle cap off as soon as it was hers and wasted no time to guzzle down the entire thing right there.

Wiping off her lips, she honored his question, "I'm looking for someone." The man looked genuinely confused by the answer he'd gotten. A second of silence followed, broken as the other customer approached with their own order. The cashier's eyes, still processing Yang's reply, darted over to his next task, as he tended to the other customer - what now looked to be a fairly young girl, about Yang's own age or younger.

The cashier looked back to Yang, continuing the conversation while he rang up the girl's order. "People don't usually pass through here looking for someone," he laughed off. He handed the girl her supplies and she silently thanked him, turning towards the front of shop. "Only person of note 'round here here is..." The man's brow furrowed as he looked at the young blonde holding her steady gaze.

_"Raven Branwen,"_ she confirmed. The man's eyes widened and even the girl ahead seemed to stand still for a moment at the mention. Yang donned her sunglasses and headed out of the shop, parting him with a "thanks," as she disposed of her empty bottle. His protests that followed, not to get involved with bandits, were ignored as she walked unwaveringly to her ride sitting in front of a pump.

She stood outside for a moment, pensively facing out towards the road she had traveled along. Her thoughts drifted to her sister, to Weiss, to her friends waiting for her... To Blake. She took a moment and breathed in deeply, feeling a slight tremor in her hand. She wanted to see them all, and soon. But there was one thing she needed to do first.

* * *

A good dozen miles down the road, as Yang's eyes scanned the ground, they caught a glimpse of peculiar patterns in the dirt path. Swerving lines in the road deepened and thinned out, overlapped and ran on and off course. She slowed down and kept alert. _'Could be signs of Grimm,'_ She thought. _'Or maybe... an ambush?'_

A couple more miles passed and the lines started to get more erratic. More boldly dug into the dirt as well. Yang's mounting suspicions were not in vain, it seemed; another mile and a half down the road, she found a lone motorbike, toppled over and abandoned in front of the bushes just on the side of the road. Yang swerved to a halt, kicked out the stand and propped the Bumblebee up, as she carefully walked over to investigate. She followed into the sparse woods for a few minutes before she came to find the scene that answered her questions.

A pack of empty motorbikes stood in a small clearing in the woods. To the side, a group of 7 or 8 men dressed in a smattering of denim, leather and black clothing stood around a young, shaking victim, hands raised up to their face in defense. Yang gritted her teeth and could feel a familiar distressing tremor in her left hand. Focusing for a better look, she caught a black bandana on the victim's head and the rest of the person's features filled in to her sight. This was the girl from the pit stop earlier.

A loud shot rang out through the woods, bouncing off the trees and sending birds into the sky off in the horizon. The gang gathered around the girl turned to see the blonde emerging from the bushes, one smoking arm outstretched toward the motorbikes, one of which was now lying on its side on the ground. Yang turned up to face them, eyes flaring up in a scorching red anger. _"You boys seem to be **lost**,"_ she practically growled, throwing her other hand over her shoulder, thumb pointing behind her. _"Road's back **that** way."_

A couple of the men straightened up and exchanged looks among them and some seemed ready to back off. Others shrugged, looking to be either confused or awaiting orders. At the center, one approached Yang, holding a double-ended hammer with his arms draping over its pole. "Bad time to go for a stroll in the woods, girlie," he laughed. Yang's only response was to bring her arm out in front of her, introducing him to the barrel of her Ember Celica.

The thug whistled a tone which lowered and then raised back up, as two of the men ran up to Yang from opposite sides. She fired another shot directly at the apparent leader of the pack, who pivoted, swung around and extended his hammer to knock the rocket off course and send it into the ground.

The two thugs engaging Yang were met with a flurry of blows, kicks and sweeps, which incapacitated them fairly quickly. Another approached, and threw her a punch. She quickly moved into his body and met the blow at his shoulder rather than letting his fist close the distance. She took hold of his arm, braced his leg with hers and drove the butt of her palm up into his chin, throwing him off balance. More attackers came in and more tapped out. Yang took a fall and a couple of punches herself, but every time she was hit, it seemed like her opponent went down faster.

One man approached her from the rear and fired a net at her. She just barely reacted in time to evade getting trapped completely, but the net did catch her right arm, rendering it difficult to use and unwieldy. The leader followed up and swung his hammer overhead, crashing one end down onto her. She braced herself by raising her mechanical arm to block it, but just as it was about to hit, the head seemed to spring out from its handle and it clocked her right in the face. She took a hard tumble backwards onto the ground and he laughed as she flipped over. He walked over to the supine Yang, her face still planted in the ground and gave a hard kick to her side.

Yang's entire body reeled from the hit. She pulled her face up to look at her opponent and her red eyes shot up to his like she was trying to blind him with her sheer rage. She stood up to respond to his next blow as he swung his weapon horizontally. She caught the blow with her arm and the man swung around and brought it up over his head for another strike from above. This time, when she braced to block it, this head too detached from its handle, but swung around her arms, tethered to the pole by wire. Her wrists held in a grapple by the weapon, she could do nothing to prevent his knee from crashing into her face. Barely, and partially thanks to the grapple she was in, she managed to hold her footing. Her entire body looked like it was on fire now. The sight alone of her still standing, even after all of the hits she'd taken, was almost enough to visibly disturb her assailant.

With her wrists not entirely in her control, she used her torso and arm strength to yank back at the weapon binding her arms. She lifted off with her legs and spun her body around to send her feet smashing into the man's chest, at least with enough force to loosen his grip on the pole. She once again pointed Ember Celica at him, the barrel staring right at his face and offered him a surrender, to which he slowly, begrudgingly raised his hands.

After taking the time to free herself, she watched as the remaining gangsters got on their motorbikes and rode off. She walked up to the girl and stretched her hand out, "Are you okay?"

The girl only stared up at her with wide eyes, still shaking. Eventually the shock of the situation had subsided and she took the help getting up. She looked at Yang and brought her hand flat up toward her face, fingers on her chin. In a fluid gesture, she swung her arm down, palm facing up, and smiled at her. Yang blinked and tilted her head in confusion. The girl blinked back and looked around pensively for a moment before clasping her hands together and mouthing a _"thank you."_

"Oh! You... can't talk?" Yang scratched the back of her head, slightly embarrassed. She narrowed her eyes and thought for a moment. "Okay how's this... if you can walk and ride okay, follow me. If not, take my arm!" She outstretched her arm for a moment. The girl nodded and simply walked ahead. Yang nodded and followed. Before mounting their motorbikes, the mute girl grabbed onto Yang's sleeve and pointed up at the now darkening sky. She pointed at Yang, then at herself, then at the road ahead. Yang blinked, "you want me to follow you?" The girl nodded.

* * *

Yang plopped down on a bar stool and grunted as she felt the weight of her still-healing body crash down onto it. Her silent companion sat down next to her and smiled as she offered her the menu. Yang eyed it over, disinterested, but kept it right beside her. "I think I'm... gonna take a minute before I think about food." The girl nodded, and soon the bartender came over.

"Mag!" A bellow from behind the bar drew Yang's attention to the robust woman polishing a mug as she smiled to the girl. The girl, Mag, began gesturing to the bartender as the two held a conversation Yang could only be privy to one half of.  
"Hang on, she saved you? From wh-"  
"How many?!"  
"Unbelievable. This far out into Anima, too?" Her tone took a markedly more somber, concerned air after Mag's next response.  
"Mag... you know nothing good can come of-"

Yang noticed that even Mag's gesticulations seemed to take on their own tone, her movements faster and more sharp and her face radiating with a sort of serious intent.

"It's dangerous."  
"Mag. Are you _sure_?"  
"Okay..." She sighed "Hang on, dear, I'll go get her. You just wait right here." The bartender approached Yang on her way to this 'her'. "Miss, thank you for what you've done to help Mag. If you hadn't been right there, who knows what those Branwen thugs would have done to her." Instantly Yang's blood boiled. She could feel the heat in her face as it quickly transformed to a mix of shock and rage, and she yet again found herself steadying her shaking hand. "And," the woman continued with a brief glance back to the girl, "there's someone she thinks you should meet."

Moments later, the woman returned and smiled to Yang and Mag before resuming her bar duties. Soon after, Yang could see another person approaching the bar. Mag got up from her seat and practically flew into their arms. The two hugged, and Mag brought them over to the bar stool where Yang was sitting.

In the light, more and more of this stranger's features were visible; they appeared to be a girl of average height, closer to Yang's own, if only an inch or two shorter. Her flowing hair was black with what almost looked to be a faint shadow of dark auburn glow about it. Her skin was pale and she, like Mag, looked a lot younger up close. "It's certainly nice to meet _you_," she smiled at Yang through piercing crimson eyes and extended her hand. "Name's Jack."

Yang shook her hand and and willed her a smile back. "I'm Yang." She also waved to Mag, who sat down on the other side of Jack, realizing that she'd not yet given any of them her name.

"So Yang," started Jack, noticing the menu tucked under her arm. "What do ya drink?"

Yang blinked for a second before looking down and remembering that she was hovering over the bar menu like an eagle just moments ago. She forced a polite smile despite herself and weakly protested. "What? Oh! No, no, it's fine, you don't have to worry about m-"

"Hey," Jack cut her off. "No need to bother with all that humble crap around here Yang," she insisted frankly. "I can't thank you enough for helping my Mag back there. This is the least I can do." Only seconds after Yang glanced back down at the menu, her stomach weighed in to the debate and she quickly surrendered to let herself be treated. Jack put in their orders and the three occupied their wait with chit-chat.

"So Jack, huh?" Yang began, "that's an odd name."

Jack nodded and conjured up what seemed to be a familiar explanation, "Jackdaw's my full name. Like the bird." Mag nodded and Jack pointed at her, "_The Jackdaw and The Magpie_." Mag rolled her eyes with a smile. "There was an old wives' tale in this little village of two birds from opposite ends of Anima who come together and unite the kingdom with their song."

Mag started signing as Jack translated for Yang, "Each bird had its own song to sing, but when they put their songs together it formed an ancient melody that summoned the four maidens, who then blessed the warring towns with natural bounty." Jack smiled as Mag went on, "as walls fell, bridges were built in their place, and the long-divided kingdom was reforged."

Yang looked to them and Jack turned back to face her. "It was a nickname the local kids gave us. And," she chuckled, "guess it kinda stuck."

The story made Yang smile warmly. "Well," she looked down at the bar table, thoughts drifting away from her. "I can't honestly say that isn't heartwarming."

Their food arrived shortly and the smell alone was more than enough to summon Yang's focus back. The three of them dug in and with Yang's body seemingly filling a bottomless reservoir to recover from the fight earlier today, the whole meal seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye.

After the clatter of plates being scooped away by the bartender had subsided, Yang held up a hand to the two girls. "Sorry, but I've been meaning to ask... are you two sisters, or...?"

Jack laughed through an embarrassed smile and Mag turned her eyes downward to her hands, which had quickly drawn in towards her chest. "Well," Jack began after some thought, "we certainly grew up like we were, haha... We've pretty much only had each other our whole lives." Jack closed her eyes and took a breath. "We aren't sisters, no. We're just... we've always been together? And things just seem... fine that way." She looked at the flustered girl beside her as she described their relationship. "_Perfect_, even."

Mag signed through Jack, "we are... there for each other. For everything."

Jack laughed, "I like that." She smiled at Mag, resting her hand on hers. "We're _there_ for each other."

Yang couldn't stop a bittersweet smile from creeping onto her face as she watched them. Mag caught her in a glance and tilted her head inquisitively. Yang received the question and looked down at her own hands. "I had someone who I thought was 'there for me'... until very recently." The smile left her face quickly as she found her thoughts relapsing to that Faunus partner of hers back at Beacon. "I'm just," she groaned, "not the type of person people like sticking around for, I guess."

A silence permeated their conversation as Jack searched for the words to respond with. She put her hand on Yang's shoulder and, before she could wrestle out her condolence, Yang freed her of the responsibility. "Even my own _mother_," she laughed out in spite of her obvious pain. "Monster that she was, even she left me."

"I'll drink to that," Jack sighed sympathetically, raising her glass to her lips. "_Believe_ me, I'll drink to that." Yang did the same, and the both of them seemed briefly content to bathe their wounds in the healing air of cathartic kinship, as well as their drinks. Mag, having finished her drink long ago, rested her head on Jack's shoulder. "Bitch just left me with whatever poor soul had had the misfortune to share a glace with her in some seedy bar." She muscled down more of her drink and practically slammed the mug back down onto the bar table. "At least I had the good turn of fate to meet Mag there," she exhaled. "Poor girl lost her family - and her voice - in a scuffle with that _bloodthirsty pack of thieving scum_," she scowled.

Yang looked up at her, "bandits?"

Jack met her eyes directly.

_"Branwens."_

By the time she processed the comment, Yang's heart was racing. Her blood was pumping a tsunami of cold blood through her veins and her eyes were welling up. She was feeling more emotions at once than she knew what to do with, and for a couple seconds, she simply froze up. _'Should I... tell them about my mother... about why I really came out here?' _Yang's brain tormented her. _'Are they gonna just... flip on me and think I'm one of _them_?'_

Jack finally freed the blonde from the silence consuming her. "They took damn near everything from me, but honestly, what really pisses me off... is that they hurt _her_." Her hand clutched Mag's tighter, and the silent girl put her other hand on top of her partner's. "The Branwens leave a lot of broken families in their wake, Yang."

"_I'll_ drink to that," Yang wasted no time in agreeing with that particular sentiment. She took a swig from the drink she'd been nursing and Jack did the same. After a pause Yang turned to Jack and softly followed up, "your folks too?" The blonde wasn't even sure what she said was audible until she heard the girl's response.

Jack's eyes closed and she shook her head. "A _lot_. Of broken families."

Through the quiet reverence that followed, Yang felt a nagging curiosity eating away at her. An amorphous, elusive notion that there was something left unsaid, something... more to all of this. She let a thought form in her mind as she drowned down a good portion of the remains of her drink. "You know Jack," she started, "I have a feeling your mom and my mom would get along perfectly." They laughed at the thought of their respective images of their mothers, perhaps having a similar conversation, in a similar bar somewhere. "Either that or they'd be plotting to get at each others' throats the whole time," Yang added.

"Probably both!" Jack replied, and the laughter escalated again. Mag too was choking down a silent laugh, her face half-obscured by the dark-haired girl she was now sinking into. Jack rubbed the gray hair of Mag's head and continued after some reflection, "actually woulda been nice to imagine her losing her throne to a creature just like her."

Yang laughed before the realization caught up to her that there still appeared to be something she was missing. "Hmm- her throne?"

"Yeah," Jack added, her expression regaining its composure, "I didn't care to mention before but-" She took a breath and hugged Mag's head to her chest, apparently for her own comfort as well as her partner's. "My mother... was actually a Branwen herself." Jack's eyes belied no trace of laughter and Yang began to feel the revelatory sensation of that vague mystery crashing down around her.

Slowly, Yang's thoughts coalesced into a singularity as the mental image of the girl next to her flickered in her mind. Jack seemed to blink out of Yang's brain for a fraction of a second and then instantaneously back into the world before her - the same girl, but a completely new notion of a person, as if all evening Jack had been a puzzle, and Yang just found the final piece. She threw herself into the remainder of her beverage and shook her head in preparation of breaching the topic that she couldn't shake out of her mind.

"Jack, your hair..." Yang noted, as if gradually re-familiarizing herself with the appearance of the girl she'd just spent hours meeting.  
"Your skin," she continued. Jack raised a concerned eyebrow at her.  
"Your _eyes_!" The girl before her grimaced at the mention of the pools of her blood red irises. Feeling where this was going, Jack looked ahead with terror, as if pleading Yang to stop, begging her to just- not go there.

"Jack. Your mom... is she..." Yang backed up into the bar stool interrogating Jack's very appearance as Mag wrapped her arms around her. "R-"

_"Raven Branwen,"_ Jack finished, a cold defeat in her voice seeping through the petrified mask her face had become.

After a moment of stunned silence, Yang threw her head into her hands realizing what she'd just forced out of the girl. "I'm sorry," she fired out. "I'm so sorry. I-I shouldn't have pressed it..."

Jack looked straight ahead, still frozen. It would be a few seconds before she could speak, "I should have known this was coming." She sighed and pet Mag's head. "A little birdie in a tree told me..." she croaked out, stroking the grey hair for comfort, "that you were looking for someone. For _her_."

Tears now rolled down Yang's cheeks as she reached for Jack's shoulder, "Hey, look. There's something I need to tell you." She sighed, praying that this would at least restore a little bit of the trust she felt she'd robbed her of. "I may not look it, Jack," she started, checking that the girl was processing her words, "but Raven Branwen... is _my_ mother too."

Suddenly the world seemed to stop for the three of them. It felt like hours passed in the span of seconds. Still, before she knew it, Yang's fears were allayed as Jack simply leaned in slowly and hugged her. Yang wasted no time reciprocating, as she threw her arms around her newfound half-sister and her partner. Gradually, the world spun again, and the universe expended back out from the three of them as they finally met one another.

* * *

The humming of engines fizzled out as the two vehicles crawled to a stop. In the dirt road, Yang dismounted the Bumblebee and walked over to join Jack and Mag, as they briefly exited their motorbike.

"There's a winding path," Jack pointed out into a barely-noticeable fold in the foliage of the woods beside them, "but it'll take you to them, if you can follow it." She cupped her hands against Yang's face, and pressed their foreheads together. "Ready?" Yang nodded and they closed their eyes.

Suddenly, Yang could see herself standing in the field, alone. Without any mental initiative whatsoever, she began walking down the path ahead, surprised at her own movement. Passing tree after tree, bush after bush in confusing, unintuitive bends and turns, she finally found herself approaching the gates of the Branwen camp. As she drew closer, the gates shifted and flickered, twisting and contorting before they fizzled out of existence, leaving behind only black emptiness. Yang opened her eyes and saw Jack and Mag again. And the Bumblebee. And Jack and Mag's motorbike. She was right where she was standing before she started down the path.

"Whoa. Handy semblance," she scratched her head, "but how am I going to remember all that?"

"That's where Mag comes in." Jack grinned to Mag as she shuffled over to Yang and presented her with a silver trinket. It looked to her like a simple handheld mirror.

Mag began signing to her as Jack translated. "Using this mirror, you can recall anything you've seen before, as vividly and clearly as when you first experienced it. And you've just seen the path through Jack's semblance."

Jack picked up where Mag's hands left off. "Basically Yang, you saw the path because _I've_ traveled it before," she winked.

Yang blinked, amazed. "Holy crap, you two are incredible!" She pulled them into a hug and they reciprocated.

As Yang backed out to turn down the path ahead, Jack put her hand on her shoulder. "You better be careful out there Yang - don't make me lose a family member I only knew I had for a day!"

"Of course not," she retorted with a smile, "we've got a lot more to catch up on, sis!"


End file.
